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Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Big Oil....the ultimate welfare fraud

Yesterday, I read a blog post on Eclectablog (www.eclectablog.com), that I think all of you should read; http://www.eclectablog.com/2011/05/its-unamerican-to-want-to-end-corporate.html . It is a very informative and well researched blog about how corporate big oil is not only raping us at the gas pumps, but, with the full power of the republican party behind them, is STILL sucking in over $4 billion in tax incentives and subsidies every year. This is an issue I have been ranting and raving about for years.

Pres. Obama and the democratic party, have taken the fight against this outrage into the open, and ConocoPhillips had the audacity to say that anyone who wanted to kill these absurd subsidies was, "Un-American". Let me take a minute for you to digest that......

I'm just going to give you a basic rundown on this situation to make sure you have the facts (once again, make sure you go to the above link and read the blog I posted from Eclecta, there are some great graphs and stat sheets to back up any claims I make here).

In the past decade, big oil companies have seen a profit of $1 trillion dollars, $30 billion dollars so far in the first quarter of 2011 alone, AND they are seeking their yearly $4 billion dollar tax incentive subsidy from the US Government. They are pushing for more lenient regulations on drilling standards (remember the Gulf Spill? think we really need looser drilling regulation?). They claim that these lower standards and tax breaks will assist in lowering the price of gas per gallon at the pump.

Folks, additional funds and easier reg.s are not going to change the price of gas by one red cent! Additional oil production in the US only means that the corporations will have a few hundred thousand extra barrels of oil to distribute in the international market. They don't tell you that the oil produced MIGHT be sold within US borders, or it MIGHT be sold internationally. It's a case of consumption and commodity pricing. We can only burn so much oil (thank God), so additional production just means we have more EXCESS oil to sell to others. It won't change the fact that we purchase two thirds of our oil from foreign markets. In fact, the additional production is so insignificant, that it will barely change overall global oil pricing at all! The only effect that these changes will have, is that corporate oil will see an additional profit this fiscal year, and a very significant profit at that. We are getting charged twice at the pump is what it boils down to.

Let me give you an analogy:

Joe Shmoe, works a full time job. He gets his pay every week, but he doesn't think that's enough money, so, he illegally files for welfare and gets it. Joe gets caught. Joe goes to jail. Because, what Joe did, is against the law.
Now, suppose Joe works at a job where he can get paid under the table (his pay isn't recorded as a taxable income in other words). He then files for welfare, receives it, and GETS AWAY WITH IT!

Show me the difference between this scenario and big oil's larcenous activities.

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